Snail Fur
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Snail Fur
''Hydractinia echinata'' is a colonial marine hydroid which is often found growing on dead, hermit-crabbed shells of marine gastropod The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ... species. This hydroid species is also commonly known as snail fur, a name which refers to the furry appearance that the hydroids give to a shell. In the northwestern Atlantic, these hydroids are especially common on the outside of shells that are occupied by the flat-clawed hermit crab. Description ''Hydractinia echinata'' forms pinkish-brown (when alive) or plain brown (when dead) patches on gastropod shells that are occupied by a hermit crab, often near the aperture of the shell.John Barrett and C M Young, Collins Pocket Guide to the Sea Shore (1958) p.48 The horny mat or hydrorhiza is about t ...
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Hydrozoa
Hydrozoa (hydrozoans; ) are a taxonomic class of individually very small, predatory animals, some solitary and some colonial, most of which inhabit saline water. The colonies of the colonial species can be large, and in some cases the specialized individual animals cannot survive outside the colony. A few genera within this class live in freshwater habitats. Hydrozoans are related to jellyfish and corals and belong to the phylum Cnidaria. Some examples of hydrozoans are the freshwater jelly (''Craspedacusta sowerbyi''), freshwater polyps ('' Hydra''), ''Obelia'', Portuguese man o' war (''Physalia physalis''), chondrophores (Porpitidae), "air fern" (''Sertularia argentea''), and pink-hearted hydroids (''Tubularia''). Anatomy Most hydrozoan species include both a polyp (zoology), polypoid and a medusa (biology), medusoid stage in their lifecycles, although a number of them have only one or the other. For example, ''Hydra'' has no medusoid stage, while ''Liriope tetraphylla, Lir ...
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Gastropod
The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. There are many thousands of species of sea snails and slugs, as well as freshwater snails, freshwater limpets, and land snails and slugs. The class Gastropoda contains a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes back to the Late Cambrian. , 721 families of gastropods are known, of which 245 are extinct and appear only in the fossil record, while 476 are currently extant with or without a fossil record. Gastropoda (previously known as univalves and sometimes spelled "Gasteropoda") are a major part of the phylum Mollusca, and are the most highly diversified class in the phylum, with 65,000 to 80,000 living snail and slug species. The anatomy, behavior, feeding, and re ...
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Pagurus Pollicaris
''Pagurus pollicaris'' is a hermit crab commonly found along the Atlantic coast of North America from New Brunswick to the Gulf of Mexico. It is known by a number of common names, including ''gray hermit crab'', ''flat-clawed hermit crab'', ''flatclaw hermit crab'', ''shield hermit crab'', ''thumb-clawed hermit crab'', ''broad-clawed hermit crab'', and ''warty hermit crab''. ''P. pollicaris'' inhabits the shells of shark eye snails and whelks. It grows to a length of and a width of . The shell is often shared by the commensal zebra flatworm ('' Stylochus ellipticus''). The diet of the flat-clawed hermit crab comprises organic matter, algae, and sometimes other hermit crabs. Fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ... are the most important predators of this specie ...
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Buccinum Undatum - Hydractinia Echinata 07
''Buccinum'' is a genus of medium-sized sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Buccinidae, the true whelks.Gofas, S.; Bouchet, P. (2014). Buccinum Linnaeus, 1758. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=137701 on 2015-02-18 Snails in this genus are commonly called ''whelks'', a name shared with several related and unrelated species. The common whelk ''Buccinum undatum'' is the most common representative of the genus in the northern Atlantic Ocean. Description The shell is ovate or ovate-conical and elongated. The spire is moderate and pointed. The aperture is oval or oblong with a deep notch anteriorly and without a siphonal canal. The columella is plain, not flattened, swollen above, and often covered with a wide and flattened calcareous callosity, of more diaphanous substance. There sometimes exists a fold at the base of the columella. The outer lip is plain, quite thin, sometimes recurved, an ...
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Polyp (zoology)
A polyp in zoology is one of two forms found in the phylum Cnidaria, the other being the medusa. Polyps are roughly cylindrical in shape and elongated at the axis of the vase-shaped body. In solitary polyps, the aboral (opposite to oral) end is attached to the substrate by means of a disc-like holdfast called a pedal disc, while in colonies of polyps it is connected to other polyps, either directly or indirectly. The oral end contains the mouth, and is surrounded by a circlet of tentacles. Classes In the class Anthozoa, comprising the sea anemones and corals, the individual is always a polyp; in the class Hydrozoa, however, the individual may be either a polyp or a medusa, with most species undergoing a life cycle with both a polyp stage and a medusa stage. In class Scyphozoa, the medusa stage is dominant, and the polyp stage may or may not be present, depending on the family. In those scyphozoans that have the larval planula metamorphose into a polyp, the polyp, a ...
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Planula
A planula is the free-swimming, flattened, ciliated, bilaterally symmetric larval form of various cnidarian species and also in some species of Ctenophores. Some groups of Nemerteans also produce larvae that are very similar to the planula, which are called planuliform larva. Development The planula forms either from the fertilized egg of a medusa, as is the case in scyphozoans and some hydrozoans, or from a polyp, as in the case of anthozoans. Depending on the species, the planula either metamorphoses directly into a free-swimming, miniature version of the mobile adult form, or navigates through the water until it reaches a hard substrate (many may prefer specific substrates) where it anchors and grows into a polyp. The miniature-adult types include many open-ocean scyphozoans. The attaching types include all anthozoans with a planula stage, many coastal scyphozoans, and some hydrozoans. Feeding and locomotion The planulae of the subphylum Medusozoa have no mouth, and no ...
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Eupagurus Bernhardus
''Pagurus bernhardus'' is the common marine hermit crab of Europe's Atlantic coasts. It is sometimes referred to as the common hermit crab or soldier crab. Its carapace reaches long, and is found in both rocky and sandy areas, from the Arctic waters of Iceland, Svalbard and Russia as far south as southern Portugal, but its range does not extend as far as the Mediterranean Sea. It can be found in pools on the upper shore and at the mean tide level down to a depth of approximately , with smaller specimens generally found in rock pools around the middle shore and lower shore regions, with larger individuals at depth. ''P. bernhardus'' is an omnivorous detritivore that opportunistically scavenges for carrion, and which can also filter feed when necessary. ''Pagurus bernhardus'' uses shells of a number of gastropod species for protection, including '' Littorina littorea'', ''Littorina obtusata'', ''Nassarius reticulatus'', ''Gibbula umbilicalis'', ''Nucella lapillus'' and ''Bucc ...
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Hydractiniidae
Hydractiniidae is a cnidarian family of athecate hydroids. Genera The World Register of Marine Species includes the following genera in the family: *'' Bouillonactinia'' Miglietta, McNally & Cunningham, 2010 *'' Clava'' Gmelin, 1788 *'' Clavactinia'' Thornely, 1904 *'' Cnidostoma'' Vanhöffen, 1911 *'' Distichozoon'' Cairns, 2015 *'' Fiordlandia'' Schuchert, 1996 *''Hydractinia'' Van Beneden, 1844 *'' Hydrissa'' Stechow, 1922 *''Hydrocorella'' Stechow, 1921 *''Janaria'' Stechow, 1921 *'' Parahydractinia'' Xu & Huang, 2006 *'' Podocoryna'' M. Sars, 1846 *''Schuchertinia'' Miglietta, McNally & Cunningham, 2010 *''Stylactis ''Stylactis'' is a genus of hydrozoans belonging to the family Hydractiniidae Hydractiniidae is a cnidarian family of athecate hydroids Anthoathecata, or the athecate hydroids, are an order of hydrozoans belonging to the phylum Cnidaria. A ...'' Allman, 1864 References Filifera Cnidarian families {{Anthoathecata-stub ...
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